I’m very curious to hear your thoughts on this topic. What can we do to fix this? If you’ve already tried something what were your results? What worked and what do you think could be done better?
My thoughts on this are that we keep electing politicians who support billionaires and elite instead of ordinary people like you and me. In addition people are loosing a sense of community and are isolated at home. I think these two things can be fixed simultaneously by getting out and talking about class and corrupt politicians in person and having mutual support networks.
These corrupt politicians typically get elected by exploiting people’s fears and biases. For example a corrupt politician might blame your problems on immigrants or minorities. Meanwhile people won’t notice that they are being robbed by the billionaires.
I read interviews of people who used to be part of hate groups. The consistent theme I noticed is that they had past traumas and issues which draw them towards hateful ideologies. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/12/opinions/former-white-supremacist-how-to-tackle-hate-buckley/index.html
When talking to people it’s important to listen and respect them first before you say your points. This article has a good technique for talking with people: https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-to-change-a-voters-mind-is-deep-canvassing/ I’ve been using myself and I can vouch for it.
The DNC made reforms to the party after 2016. In addition who we get to vote on is controlled by the primary process. Regarding other parties unless you have ranked choice a third party will just split the vote and let Republicans win. Another alternative is having the same person run as two parties and the votes will both count for him/her like what AOC does.
You can rationalize it however you want to, it’s undemocratic and it means the people do not get to choose who they vote for.
It wasn’t just 2016. They told everyone to drop just before the primary in 2020 so Biden could run, who then only won because people were motivated to get Trump out. Then in 2024 they didn’t even have a primary, ignored protest “uncommitted” votes and pretended everything including the economy was booming, and used the same exact campaign manager for Kamala that ran Hliary’s campaign into the ground. Saying they made “reforms” is just complete bullshit to make you feel like they are responsive to the will of the people, and I can’t believe anyone falls for it.
The rest of that is just more drivel, it’s simply the most successful way the Democrats have been able to justify their anti-democratic actions and rhetoric. Candidates are electable if the people vote for them and, even if it does “split the ticket” (it doesn’t), more candidates allows more competing narratives to get out there and changes what discussions are taking place across election season. When the results come back, those results tell the major parties (and the people) what motivated the people to vote, so they can meet the people where they are and be held accountable when they refuse to. If there are no progressive candidates getting a significant number of votes, they take it as a message to move right and capture that audience instead.
If the Republicans and Democrats can’t get the people off their couches, why don’t they let someone else give it a try?